Effect of hydrogen annealing on the resistive switching characteristics of BiMnO3 thin films

Resistive random access memory (RRAM) has attracted considerable attention due to its low operation voltage, rapid switching speed and simple structure for the next-generation memory. Herein, polycrystalline BiMnO3 (BMO) thin films were deposited on Pt/Ta/glass substrates by pulsed laser deposition. BMO thin films annealed in a hydrogen atmosphere (HBMO) exhibited a high leakage current with a ferroelectric hysteresis loop, which can be typically observed in ferroelectric thin films with increasing concentration of oxygen vacancies. In terms of the resistive switching characteristics of BMO and HBMO thin films, it is confirmed that the hydrogen annealing process makes it possible to reduce the SET and RESET voltages and clarify the difference between high-resistance and low-resistance states. (C) 2016 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.